Pacifist players in World of Warcraft are a bit of a niche phenomenon in Blizzard's behemoth, since they're perfectly willing to turn the MMO's sometimes tedious grind into an unholy abomination by managing to cap a character without ever killing a single creature. As an echo of Everbloom's legacy, Warcraft player Irenic journeyed to level 90 without a single kill and just one quest completion under his or her belt.

Irenic's stats provide the proof, showing a clean slate under creatures killed, 92 total damage dealt, and a single quest completed -- the latter an unavoidable, auto-completing event after reaching level 86. In a forum post, Irenic explained the entirety of the run was a solo effort of massive grinding sessions for professions and archaeology digs, writing, "Since the entrance to Pandaria isn't designed to be entered without questing & killing, I spent all my time doing archaeology and gathering in Kalimdor."

And here I thought punching a dragon to death this morning was already impressive.

Robert Stoneman's "We're at War" is one of the most well executed pieces of Planetside 2 machinima we've seen so far. Interspersing well-edited footage with stylized camera filters and classic, real-world war era broadcasts, it almost looks like something out of a documentary. Plus, the NC features prominently, which is enough to win me over immediately in most cases. I'm easy like that.

Have a look for yourself above, and check out the director's website if you like what you see.

We reported recently that Paradox has created a permanent team to produce ongoing content for War of the Roses. We're just now getting some info on what that's going to look like. Before the end of the year we can expect seven new weapons, new armor options including Knights Hospitaller plate, and even some new maps and game modes.

The new hardware coming in the first content update is themed around the Knights Hospitaller, one of the most famous chivalric orders in history, and includes:

Milanese Knights Hospitaller crafted heavy armor
One new helmet and four new visors
Seven new weapons: gothic mace, rondel dagger, halberd, Hospitaller poleaxe, horn spanned crossbow, new arming sword, and an Italian side sword



Later in the year, we can expect two snowy maps, and a game mode called Pitched Battle. Of the latter, we are told nothing except that players will "learn to value their lives." Joining the current team deathmatch and capture point-based melees, it almost sounds like it might be a Counter-Strike-esque, "You die, you're dead for the round" kind of thing. We'll be keeping our eyes and our swords sharp for more info on this advancing content.

Activision announced today that the Call of Duty Elite service will be free for Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 players when the game launches on November 13. Formerly a premium subscription service for players of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, the service will be integrated into Black Ops 2 and allow all players to enjoy features like stat tracking, clan support, Zombies tracking, and social sharing for no extra charge.

The free Elite service will not retroactively include premium features for Modern Warfare 3, though stat tracking and player information will be free to all. But why go free now? Says Activision Publishing CEO, Eric Hirshberg: “What we have realized is that several of the Call of Duty Elite services which are currently only available to our premium members for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 are things that would further unite, engage, and delight our player community. So we are going to make them free for Call of Duty: Black Ops II.” Guess that means MW3 players were just too united, engaged, and delighted for free Elite service.

When the zombie apocalypse inevitably heaves into sight, it'll sweep through the structures of civilization with remarkable gentleness. That might explain why the quaint abodes in the latest batch of screenshots from DayZ's standalone metamorphosis appear largely unscathed, including the fully explorable interiors. Wait, houses with actual stuff inside of them?!

Yep, according to DayZ creator Dean "Rocket" Hall. "The village I used to take the screenshots in now has all its buildings enterable, including the sheds," he wrote on his official development blog. "Most of the focus so far has been on the buildings that are situated outside of the center, but we're now turning to doing interiors for the city buildings. This is complicated by our desire to dramatically increase performance, and given the scene complexity inside cities, we need to balance this with the desire to increase building scavenging opportunities inside the cities."

While the depicted indoor environments lack detailed lighting and texturing passes so far, the mere confirmation of their existence shows Rocket's dedication to expanding Chernarus' scope on the road to a playable alpha this year. All that's missing is a survivor named Robin Leach.

Valve announced today that 21 more games have passed the Greenlight community test and will be published on Steam. Among the chosen few are Miner Wars 2081, Octodad: Dadliest Catch, Forge, and literally 18 more.

According to a statement from Valve's Doug Lombardi, the second wave was originally planned to include "at least 10 titles," but that "given the number and quality of games submitted, and the ship date of many of the top-ranking titles, the decision was made to increase the size of this group." The first selection, which was announced last month, featured ten games.

Here's the full list:


Afterfall InSanity Extended Edition

AirBuccaneers

Blockscape

Contrast

Fly'n

Folk Tale

Forge

Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams (Project Giana)

Gnomoria

Interstellar Marines

Lost Story: The Last Days of Earth

Miasmata

Miner Wars 2081

Neotokyo

Octodad: Dadliest Catch

Perpetuum

Postal 2 Complete

Secrets of Grindea

The Intruder

The Stanley Parable: HD Remix

Yogventures!

ARMA 3 developers Ivan Buchta and Martin Pezlar, detained in Greece on spying charges for over a month, are facing delays due to a strike in the Greek justice system. GamesIndustry International reports that the strikes are "indefinite," and will last until at least October 20 according to Butcha's and Pezlar's lawyer. Other sources put the earliest end date at October 31. Bohemia interactive, as we reported previously, asserts that the two devs were merely on vacation on the island of Lemnos, the setting for ARMA 3, and the Greek government had already approved the studio to take reference pictures for rebuilding the island in the game.

The petition on HelpIvanMartin.org already has over 12,000 signatures, and is providing regular updates on the status of the case. You can find more information about the strikes affecting Greece on this page.

We left discussion of Dishonored out of our latest podcast because only Tom F, Graham and I had finished it at the point of recording: but it's one of the best games this year, and we've got a lot to say about it.

In this podcast special, we talk about our experience of the game in detail, including the plot, mechanics, missions and more. Needless to say, there are major plot spoilers throughout: do not listen to this unless you've finished the game.

Read Tom's full verdict on the game in his Dishonored review. You can also check out my three alternate rulesets for the game - and vote on which you'd like to see turned into a diary series - here.

Note on the audio: A few speakers become quiet as they're talking in this episode. This is because we have a tendency to gesticulate that sometimes takes us away from our microphones. Next time, we are going to use elastic bands to tie people to the desk. By their necks.

Lord of the Rings Online's Riders of Rohan expansion has arrived. Rage at Theoden! Cry for Boromir! Laugh at Hobbits trying to ride horses! The update renders the sweeping plains of the horse lords in Lotro's biggest zones yet. If you're levelled enough, you can earn yourself a noble war horse, customise it, level it up and ride it into battle against roaming Warg bands. Or any unmounted pest that gets in your way. It doesn't matter as long as you scream "FOR ROHAN" while you're doing it.

Fangorn forest is also included, which means we get to meet more Ents and tease them about how slow they are by hanging baubles on their limbs FOR ROHAN. The grand story will continue to follow the quest of the Fellowship through Middle Earth, which means visiting a few famous locations that Turbine have designed directly from Tolkien's text.

Lord of the Rings Online is free to play, but expansions must be bought. The Lord of the Rings Online site lists three packages that cost between £30 and £52. Each come with varying amounts of cash-shop currency, armour, steeds and extra quest packs bundled in. But what does it feel like to ride the darn horses? I imagine you're asking. Good question, let's let TJ explain in his mounted combat hands-on.

Getting games onto Steam just got a whole new layer of meta with the arrival of the Greenlight Bundle, a new non-Steam-affiliated pay-what-you-want scheme for indie games. The idea appears to be that you can pay a pittance for the games now, and, in doing so, help promote the games enough that the devs can effectively promote themselves on Valve's own Greenlight promotion platform, and ultimately allow other people to pay for the games on Steam.

If only there was some way to vote for which games appear on the Greenlight Bundle, the circle would be complete.

Snark aside, the games are certainly going cheap: for a single dollar, you'll get pixel-pushing puzzler Pixel Blocked, Gozilla-inspired multiplayer game Omegalodon and the block-matching space-game mash-up Starlaxis: Light Hunter. For five dollars or more you get the above, plus Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land, Perpetuum, Dawn of Fantasy, Oniken, General Conflict and some bonus Awesomenauts DLC.

The FAQ suggests the bundle is open to further submissions from Greenlight hopefuls. It all seems like a rather elaborate way to navigate a system that many hoped would solve these exact issues of visibility - but perhaps having some barriers to entry avoids Steam's oversaturation by smaller games.